Feds Haven't Found a Toyota Electronics Glitch

In a report to Congress today, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration officials say the agency hasn’t found an electronics problem in any of the Toyotas it has investigated as part of its probe into millions of recalled vehicles.

The statements to Congress come less than a month after the Wall Street Journal reported that NHTSA couldn’t find any faults after gaining access to Toyota’s electronic data recorders. The federal government says the investigation is ongoing, but of the 58 cases it has already reviewed, 35 had evidence that the brake pedal wasn’t applied. The agency concluded that those 35 instances were likely human error and not a problem with Toyota’s electronic throttle.

Pedal entrapment — the problem attributed to nearly 7 million recalled vehicles in the U.S. — occurred in one of the incidents. The rest either had inconclusive results or partial brakes were applied.